TV Shows Make Up at Least Half of Netflix Streaming Now

Netflix may dominate the streaming video market, but there’s some surprising good news for Hulu from the MIPCOM conference in Cannes. The streaming video audience seems to be moving firmly in the direction of catching up on television rather than watching movies. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos revealed the information at the conference during a joint keynote address with Miramax CEO Mike Lang, telling the audience that “50% and sometimes 60% of viewing is TV episodes now.”

The subject came up when Netflix’s move into television production was being discussed; not only has Netflix bought the rights to David Fincher’s remake of the British drama House of Cards, but the company will also be involved in a new series called Lilyhammer, starring Steven Van Zandt. “That can be mis-perceived as Netflix giving up on movies, which it’s not,” said Sarandos, “It’s just consumers saying what they want.”

If audiences keep moving away from movies towards shorter, cheaper television shows, it’ll be interesting to see what effect it’ll have on the still-young video-on-demand market. Will movie studios be faced with having to cut prices for content deals, as their products become less important to viewers? Will television networks discover that “cord-cutting” turns out to be a real thing? Faced with more proof that audiences are rewatching shows in higher numbers and at greater volume than they were originally created to be seen, will producers start changing the structure of stories to reward multiple viewings and long-form storytelling?

The future of television is something that’s been under discussion for a long time, now. But did that many people really think that the future of streaming video content online could turn out to be television?